With Fighters Gone, Malians Welcome Normal Days

Idrissa Maiga, a Malian farmer, near the graves in Konna of his wife and three of his children, ages 10 to 14. They were killed, he said, in a French Army airstrike on Jan. 11. It was the seizure by Islamist rebels of Konna, a town in the Mopti region, that provoked France’s military intervention in Mali.Credit
Fred Dufour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

SÉVARÉ, Mali — Residents of northern Mali’s largest city poured out of their homes to celebrate the expulsion of Islamist fighters who had held their town for months, playing the music that had been forbidden under the militants’ harsh interpretation of Islamic rule and dancing in the streets.

“Everyone is in the streets,” a Gao resident, Ibrahim Touré, said in a telephone interview. “It is like a party. There is music. There are drums. It’s freedom.”

Their celebrations came as international forces trying to recapture northern Mali, which has been seized by a mosaic of heavily armed Islamist groups, deployed into Gao, one of the principal militant strongholds, French officials said Sunday. Malian forces backed by French troops also advanced toward another crucial northern town: the ancient city of Timbuktu.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault of France said French troops were “around Gao and soon near Timbuktu,” farther west. Timbuktu has been under the control of rebels and Islamist fighters for 10 months, although there are reports that many of the Islamists have moved farther into the vast desert to escape the advancing forces.

In Gao, people who had been under occupation for nearly a year by Islamist fighters flooded the streets in jubilation, weeping and shouting to welcome the Malian and French troops who arrived in force on Sunday, residents said.

If it can be held, the capture of Gao will be the biggest strategic victory in the battle to retake northern Mali, which began this month when French forces entered the fight to blunt a sudden militant push toward the capital, Bamako.

Gao is the most populous city in Mali’s north, and it endured months of repression under fighters aligned with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The city’s residents were subject to strict rules and harsh punishment, including amputations for suspected thieves and public beatings or whippings for perceived violations of Islamic law.

Fatou Cissé, a Gao resident reached by telephone, said crowds were chanting “Vive la France!” and singing the Malian national anthem.

“I was out there with them,” said Ms. Cissé, who said she was wearing bright wax-print fabric with short sleeves, the kind of clothing that was banned when the city was under militant control.

“My head is not covered,” she said. “Girls are out of the house, and they are dancing.”

Several Gao residents confirmed that a joint French and Malian military convoy toured the city around 4 p.m. on Sunday. Mr. Touré said heavy bombing began late Friday evening and continued into Saturday morning.

“The explosions were big,” Mr. Touré said, suggesting that the French were targeting rebel fuel depots and arms caches.

Mr. Touré, who grows vegetables for a living, recalled Islamist fighters stealing the small water pump on which his livelihood depended. He said he had been waiting for this day but thought it would be months — possibly years — before it arrived.

“I could not have asked for anything more,” he said. “But now, it is time to fix things, to rebuild our lives and our city.”

The French are also expected to move on to another large town, Kidal, with the notion of clearing the fighters from population centers and garrisoning them with allied African troops before the rainy season begins in March.

The Pentagon said over the weekend that the United States would provide aerial refueling for French warplanes and that it would transport troops from African nations, including Chad and Togo. The American military has already begun transporting a 600-member French mechanized battalion to Mali and is providing intelligence information, including satellite imagery.

Journalists from France 24, a cable television network, reported that they were alongside French and Malian troops at the edge of Timbuktu, the fabled desert oasis and crossroads of ancient desert caravan routes.

With its delicate, mud-walled historic sites and narrow labyrinth of streets, Timbuktu presents challenging terrain for soldiers trying to secure the city. During the 10 months it has been under Islamist control, dire reports of destruction of the tombs of Sufi saints and other important monuments have filtered back through people fleeing the city. Timbuktu is a protected World Heritage Site, home to thousands of ancient manuscripts collected over centuries.

The French Defense Ministry spokesman, Col. Thierry Burkhard, said Sunday on Europe 1 radio that troops from Mali, Nigeria and Chad were now in Gao after French special forces took the city’s airport and a strategic bridge on Saturday.

“The taking of control of Gao, which has between 50,000 and 60,000 inhabitants, by Malian, Chadian and Nigerian soldiers is under way,” Colonel Burkhard said.

Despite the northward advance of Malian and French troops, residents of northern towns continued to pour southward, seeking safety from fleeing Islamist militants and French airstrikes.

Adiarratou Sanogo, a 30-year-old teacher from Niafounké, stepped off a ferry that arrived in the riverside town of Mopti on Sunday morning, having floated down the Niger River for two days to reach safety. “We were afraid of the bombs,” Ms. Sanogo said.

As a schoolteacher she was used to a certain amount of respect, but the Islamist militants who took control of her town demanded that she cover her hair. One afternoon they came upon her talking with her brothers outside her front door, her neatly braided hair brazenly showing.

“They shook a stick at me and said I must cover up or they would beat me,” she said. “I ran inside to find a scarf.”

For many residents of towns under Islamist control, it was the little things about their previous lives that they missed most.

“No smoking, no music, no girlfriends,” said Amadou Kané, a 26-year-old history student from Niafounké. “We couldn’t do anything fun.”

The prohibition of music was particularly tough on Niafounké, Mr. Kané said, because it was the home of one of Mali’s most celebrated blues musicians, Ali Farka Touré.

“After praying in the mosque, it was our habit to play a little music,” Mr. Kané said. “They took that away from us.”

A version of this article appears in print on January 28, 2013, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: With Fighters Gone, Malians Welcome Normal Days. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe